Marchers converge on the Mall

Protesters converged on the Mall today, calling on Congress to overhaul the nation’s immigration and border control laws this year. At least 100 people were arrested, including multiple congressmen. Protesters had said they would engage in civil disobedience, and marchers cheered as each person was taken away in handcuffs.

Crowd cheers as at least 100 people arrested

Mass arrests are also taking place now at the rally, with at least 100 people arrested so far, reports Pam Constable. The crowd is cheering as protesters sit in the streets. Capitol Police have taken away Rep. Luis Gutierrez, Rep. John Lewis and Rep. Charlie Rangel as well as Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA de Maryland. The scene is orderly, with the crowd cheering as each person is arrested, Constable reports.

Closing prayers

The rally closed shortly before 3 p.m. with prayers from a range of faith leaders, including a Conservative rabbi and an Episcopal bishop. People in the crowd, many with their arms outstretched, reacted strongly to the alternating Spanish and English prayers.

“We believe today by the power of God’s spirit, yes we can build a new nation! Yes we can bring justice to America! Yes we can embrace the entire human family!” thundered the Rev. Alvin Henry, who spoke in English.

'I left my first family behind'

Mario Lopez drove to the rally from Ocean City, where both he and his wife work in beach restaurants.

“I left my first family behind, I came and worked for 13 years, and my three older children are all studying with money I sent back,” said Lopez, 53. “I love Mexico, but it is so dangerous now, there is so much killing and the pay is so low.”

His wife Idena, 48, who like Lopez has no legal papers, wept as she recounted being unable to travel home to Mexico to see her parents before they died.

“It has been 17 years, and I never saw them again,” she said. “Now we have a daughter here in America. She is 11 and she wants to be a teacher. I just want to tell the government to stop dividing families who work hard and give up so much.”

Separated families

Dozens of children from age 3 to 17 filled the stage at one point, all of whom, organizers said, had been separated from family due to deportation.

“My name is Steven Hernandez and I’m 9 years old. My dad was deported last year. This year my uncle was deported,” said one boy, smiling as he read a piece of paper before the crowd. “I want Congress to stop separating my family.”

Reform must be passed “to ensure that these children are not permanently stuck in a second class status,” said John Stocks, executive director of the National Education Association, which organized the children on stage

“We won’t stop until we get a permanent solution that grants dignity and respect to immigrant workers and their families,” Stocks said. “The House of Representatives can make or break these children’s dreams.”

Mother and son at the rally

Daniel Ovando cried when his family drove him to the bus station in Mexico City 18 years ago. Though he had a job in a private medical research laboratory, he wasn’t making enough to support himself and his mother.

“I had a dream to build her a house,” he says.

So he headed north, caught a cab to El Paso and then a Greyhound bus to Baltimore. Now, nearly two decades later, Ovando, 36, is an endoscopy technician at Johns Hopkins Hospital with a work permit.

He came to the rally from Baltimore with his mother, who is visiting the United States for only the second time.

“She feels sad,” he says. “All she wants is justice.”

His mother, speaking with her son as a translator, said families have been separated for decades because of the current system. Ovando began sending money home to his mother every month as soon as he arrived in Baltimore, eventually paying for the construction of her new house.

Pelosi: 'Immigration equals innovation'

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), minority leader of the House of Representatives, emphasized to the crowd that “the full diversity” of the House Democrats are behind the immigration measure she introduced last week, and introduced leaders of the African-American, Asian and Latino caucuses.

“The blood of immigrants flows through all our veins,” she said. “Thank you for making America more American.”

Immigration reform, she says, is good for the economy. “Immigration equals innovation,” she said.

She also said that such reforms could reduce the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars in the next two decades.

Mayor Gray touts policies

The speakers are continuing to address the crowd in English and Spanish. D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray spoke during the event, touting his pro-immigrant policies, including the recent decision to allow undocumented individuals to obtain drivers licenses. He also tied in the issue of D.C. statehood, asking Congress to let the city go.

'Immigrant rights are civil rights'

“Through history great nations declined because they built up walls of insularity,” Bond said. “America was the exception. Immigration reform must come. It will come.”

American flags held by marchers flapped in the air over the crowd, as did dozens of signs bearing the name of local and national unions and slogans including “the time is now” and “justice and dignity” and “respect.”

The deep sound of a drum punctuated the speeches, in tune with applause and chants of “Si se puede!”

Growing crowd on the Mall

The crowd on the Mall is slowly growing, reports Leah Binkovitz. Hundreds were gathered shortly before 12:30 p.m., with groups trickling in and chanting their own slogans as they walked toward the stage near the Smithsonian Castle.

“My hope is that Congress listens and goes back to work and finishes the job they have to finish,” Tefere Gebre, executive vice president of AFL-CIO, told Binkovitz. He said the abuses that undocumented workers suffer reflect a broken system “that’s not what this country is about.”

At a civil disobedience training session before the rally, he said he saw farm workers from the California valley whom he had worked with 10 years ago. He plans to participate in civil disobedience later today.

Pointing to a red band tied around his arm, he says, “I know it will go well. I’m anticipating being arrested myself.”

More on the immigration reform march

Tuesday’s rally will be held on the Mall amid a government shutdown that has closed museums and memorials to visitors. But the National Park Service has cited the First Amendment in keeping the Mall open for public protests.

Immigration advocates have said that October will be a month of escalating pressure for a comprehensive immigration bill, as Carol Morello reports. Head here to read more on the march and on why people are focusing on this issue now.

Faith leaders gather near the Capitol

Faith leaders working for immigration reform this morning turned a parking lot next to the Capitol into a sanctuary, praying responsively, singing, speaking together aloud the names of individual migrants and asking God to help them as they headed to lawmakers’ offices to lobby.

“Holy God, sit with us today on the Hill as we meet with lawmakers and their staffs, speak through us God with words that reach past arguments,” said Lisa Sharon Harper, director of mobilizing for the progressive evangelical group Sojourners. “Let my people go!”

Harper was among several dozen clergy and faith activists in Washington who met outside the United Methodist Building – across from the Supreme Court and the U.S. Capitol – for a prayer vigil and then press conference.

Women and men wearing clerical collars and various brightly colored liturgical scarves sang in English, Spanish and Swahili: “We are marching in the light of God.”

Many have worked for years on immigration reform, and said even with the distraction of budget impasse fights and government shutdown, now might be a window to pass something substantive.

“I think there is a sense of urgency. If we don’t pass something now, we won’t get a vote until after the next election,” said the Rev. Gay Jennings, president of the House of Deputies of The Episcopal Church, as she walked to the Capitol building after the prayer service. Her adopted son came from Columbia when he was an infant, she said, “and he’s had every single opportunity because I was the one who brought him.”

Driving all night for the rally

Denise Lopez, 24, and Maria Quintana, 26, drove all night from Michigan to join the rally they hope will get Congress to act.

“We’re excited. We’re ready. We’ve been waiting,” said Lopez.

In her case she’s been waiting nearly eight years for her mother to be able to return to the U.S from Mexico. After being granted amnesty back in the 1980s, she traveled to Mexico for her father’s funeral when Lopez was a teenager. While there, her visa expired and she’s been unable to return, missing quinceaneras, graduations and weddings.

“Travel is expensive,” says Lopez, who last saw her mom roughly four years ago.

When Quintana applied to colleges as a 4.0 student, she says she was rejected from public universities because she didn’t have a green card. She found the funds to attend a private college, Alma College in Michigan, through the Foundation for the Education Young Women founded by Lee and Sally Posey.

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